New citizens join land of opportunity

Thursday

Jul 4, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Fourth of July celebrations are so embedded in the American consciousness, so full of red-white-and-blue symbolism that it's easy to forget the struggles and the heartache and the hope the holiday represents.

BY JEREMIAH HORRIGAN

Fourth of July celebrations are so embedded in the American consciousness, so full of red-white-and-blue symbolism that it's easy to forget the struggles and the heartache and the hope the holiday represents.

We're the sons and daughters of struggle. Our ancestors risked their lives to come here. They weren't always welcomed; some of them weren't even treated like human beings. But they persevered and carved homes for themselves and — most especially — the families that followed in their footsteps or who were born in the new land of promise and opportunity.

As no one needs reminding now, that same struggle continues today. People from across the world are still drawn to the America whose legacy of freedom we celebrate today.

For the country's new citizens, the struggles and the benefits of citizenship are fresh and vivid.

These are three stories of the millions of stories of new American citizens.

Jameson Morton says his early days growing up on the tiny island of St. Kitts in the West Indies is today "a sort of a blur."

That sounds like a blessing, when you hear Morton talk about a childhood dominated by a harsh, post-colonial educational system in which no one spared the rod, where a young man who finally escaped school found his future was limited to a life as a fisherman, farmer or perhaps a job in the island's hospitality industry.

"Only a certain few ever really had the opportunity to excel," he recalls.

Morton was essentially raised by his grandmother, one of 20-some grandchildren. His mother, then his father, immigrated to the United States, established their residency there and then brought their children north to America.

Morton was 14 years old when he arrived in the U.S. in 1989, his head full of TV-fed ideas about what the country was like. He expected New York City, but what he got was New Paltz. And the resulting culture shock was hard to reckon with.

"It was how the Pilgrims must have felt when they arrived here and the streets weren't lined with gold," he said.

It was a whole new world that he struggled to understand, not always successfully. It was where he says he "learned racism" firsthand. And though it took a while for a teenager to grasp the importance of what his parents had done on his behalf, Morton can look back and recognize what he has gained. Most important of all was meeting his wife here; that beginning now includes two boys and two girls.

He lives today in Shandaken, working as a school bus mechanic across the river in Red Hook. Though financial concerns sometimes tempt him toward getting a second job, he says he's made his family his priority.

"I don't want to take away important time from my wife and kids," he said.

This chance to do for his kids what his parents did for him — to give them the opportunities he didn't have as a kid — is what he loves most about the country he officially joined as a citizen three weeks ago.

Chief among those opportunities is the ability to make choices: "Living here, with all the great opportunities, you can choose to go wrong or choose to go right. But, with the confidence and support of friends and family, you can get much more help to go the right way."

Lucero Desposorio was the youngest person in a room of 40 people three weeks ago to recite the Nationalization Oath of Allegiance that made her a U.S. citizen.

Anyone who knows Lucero Desposorio wouldn't be surprised to learn how quickly she responded to the challenge of becoming a citizen. The 18-year-old SUNY Ulster student has never been one to wait for a challenge or an opportunity when she could race toward it.

She'd have taken the oath earlier, but there was no hurrying the five-year residency requirement.

Take for instance, her student status. Other 18-year-olds graduated from high school and have been gearing up for college; Desposorio is already there, and full of plans for continued education — transferring to SUNY New Paltz to pursue a degree in psychology.

Desposorio was born in Lima, Peru. Her mother was a secretary and her father worked as a cashier at a hospital. Her family came to the U.S. in 2008 for the reason so many millions of immigrants come: to find better lives than the lives they could expect in their homelands.

"There's less chance of getting robbed," she said.

She was in the sixth grade and spoke a few words of English when her family landed in Tampa, Fla. Four months later, the family was living in Ellenvile.

Desposorio wasted no time enrolling in an English as a second language course. What usually takes newcomers three or four years to complete, Desposorio finished in a single year.

"I'm happy, it's calmer here," she says.

And no, she said, she's not interested in going back to the country she was born in.

"This is a better life, and better surroundings."

For Bernard Daisley, the decision to become an American citizen represented both an opportunity and a privilege.

Daisley, who is 55, was born on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. He's the father of a large family, and for much of his adult life has been the president of the St. Vincent & the Grenadines Football Federation.

It was a life that kept him traveling for much of the year. He and his family came to the U.S. in 1999, with an eye to providing his seven children with good educations. In order to qualify for citizenship, Daisley gave up his job, since it required that he be out of the country for long periods. He became a citizen in 2005 and is now a project management consultant in the building trades.

If his initial desire to come to the U.S. was fired by a desire to get the best available education for his children, his decision to become a citizen was both personal and political: "You're born a citizen wherever you are born — you have no choice," he said. "But when you look around and you see certain qualities and opportunities you want to pursue, then you realize (citizenship) is also a privilege."

Daisley has been active in campaigning for immigration reform. As he sees it, almost every American is an immigrant; the only difference between himself and people born in this country is time.

"Why should those who came here before try to stop others from the opportunity? Eleven million people have a strong desire to be a part of the system. We have a strong desire to contribute, and we already have, economically and culturally," he said.

In the end, as far as Daisley is concerned, reforming the immigration laws around the U.S. Senate's recent bipartisan action is the way to go, and the moral thing to do.